United States or Kenya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The ulna is complete and much larger than in any of the Equidoe, while it is more slender than in most of the true Paloeotheria; it is fixedly united, but not ankylosed, with the radius. There are three toes in the fore limb, the outer ones being slender, but less attenuated than in the Equidoe.

M. Gaudry has arranged the species of Hyoenidoe, Proboscidea, Rhinocerotidoe, and Equidoe in their order of filiation from their earliest appearance in the Miocene epoch to the present time, and Professor Rütimeyer has drawn up similar schemes for the Oxen and other Ungulata with what, I am disposed to think, is a fair and probable approximation to the order of nature.

The femur is more like that of the Paloeotheria than that of the horse, and has only a small depression above its outer condyle in the place of the great fossa which is so obvious in the Equidoe. The fibula is distinct, but very slender, and its distal end is ankylosed with the tibia. There are three toes on the hind foot having similar proportions to those on the fore foot.

The principal metacarpal and metatarsal bones are flatter than they are in any of the Equidoe; and the metacarpal bones are longer than the metatarsals, as in the Paloeotheria. In its general form, Plagiolophus resembles a very small and slender horse, and is totally unlike the reluctant, pig-like creature depicted in Cuvier's restoration of his Paloeotherium minus in the "Ossemens Fossiles."